Mr. Speaker, may I begin by breaking a rule and noting the presence of the Prime Minister in the House. I wish to thank the Prime Minister for sticking around to hear what we have to say to him.
I want to congratulate the Right Honourable Prime Minister. He has been a conservative politician for a very long time, but there is no way he can suggest he is progressive.
What counts is not what is in the throne speech, but what is not there. This speech does not reflect the Canadian values, and it offers no assistance to Canadian families.
This to me is a good example of what is wrong with this attempt by the Prime Minister to sort of fake to the left as he is going down the political field. It is a fake. It is not just a fake to the left. It is a sort of fake left. We see through it and many other Canadians will see through it as well.
The word “Romanow” does not come up in the throne speech even once. The Liberals have been talking for 10 years about the need to modernize medicare. How is it possible that the throne speech would not mention a home care program, a drug insurance plan, and the Romanow commission recommendations?
I thought that the Prime Minister might make up for the absence of the word “Romanow” in the Speech from the Throne today. I listened carefully what he had to say about health care. Still, it was as if there had been no royal commission on health care by the former Premier of Saskatchewan, Mr. Roy Romanow.
This was something that was commissioned by a government that he was part of. The Prime Minister will have a chance to comment after I am finished. We will have a 10 minute question and comment period. I am sure he is skilful enough that he could get up and in the form of a question, answer my question or make a comment as to why he did not mention the Romanow report and why there is not a commitment to closing the Romanow gap.
I am sure all the premiers have told him behind closed doors, even though they have to sing his praises when they come out, that they want Romanow. They want what Roy Romanow recommended, particularly with regard to funding of health care.
The Prime Minister talked about long term stable funding for health care. Why not Romanow? I would hope that the Prime Minister at some point answers that question. He says he wants to debate, let us have one.
What is it that he has against the Romanow commission that he did not mention it in either the Speech from the Throne or in his speech here today? Is he committed to meeting the recommendations of the Romanow report, particularly with respect to the fiscal recommendations of the report? That is very important to us. If the Prime Minister is not prepared to do that then this faking left leaves something to be desired. Of course, it leaves something to be desired in any event.
As concerns foreign affairs, it is strange that the throne speech would not mention the missile defence system project put forward by George Bush, even if this is the Prime Minister's top priority in foreign affairs.
Here is a good example. The Prime Minister has made a career lately--just lately because I do not remember him saying much about this before, but in the last year or so--of talking about the democratic deficit. Why not a commitment in the Speech from the Throne to have a real meaningful debate in the House sponsored by the government.
We could have the government put down what it thinks about star wars or national missile defence. Let us have a debate and let us have a vote on it. Will we have a free vote like the Prime Minister promised? He promises more free votes. Will we have that kind of free vote on something as significant as whether or not Canada will participate in something that the Liberals have always said they are against, which is the weaponization of space?
I say to the Prime Minister, why not? Why no commitment to this kind of debate? That would be a real commitment to dealing with the democratic deficit.
The leader of the Bloc mentioned a whole lot of other things that he would like to see Parliament deal with: the ratification of treaties and all kinds of things.
Here is a topical example for the Prime Minister. I would hope that he might get up at some point and say to us whether or not he agrees with the idea that this should be decided on the floor of the House of Commons and not revealed by stealth over a period of time by various statements made by the Minister of National Defence or others that they have just eased a little bit more into national missile defence but that they still have not had a debate in the House of Commons nor have they consulted Canadians.
The Prime Minister likes to quote Bono: “The world needs more Canada.” I agree. But the Prime Minister will not commit himself to increase our international development assistance, which is one of Bono's proposals.
There was not a word, not a commitment. It might have been a kind of a tip of the hat rhetorically, but there were no commitments there to international development assistance or to meeting those goals. Maybe we could say this about the Prime Minister: at least he is not being a hypocrite.
I think I am on my 14th throne speech, Mr. Speaker, and I have seen a lot of commitments to increase development assistance that never ever got realized.
Now maybe the Prime Minister is just an honest guy; he is not even going to pretend. And of course, as I am reminded by my colleagues, the Prime Minister when he was the minister of finance was responsible for cuts in development assistance and of course for cuts in many other things.
This strikes me as odd. I am sure that somebody watching might wonder how the Prime Minister can pretend that he has somehow landed here from another planet and has come upon the crime scene. He is able to pretend that this is a shame, that this should be done and that should be done, all these things that were promised in the red book. They have not been done during the 10 years when he was the minister of finance. He is prowling around in a crime scene that has his fingerprints all over it and he is saying, “Terrible. We have to do something about this”. Maybe the Prime Minister has something theological to tell us about this incredible power to forgive himself that he has been able to muster.